Last day in Istanbul and I woke up in this amazing room we booked at the Ramada and it was that sad moment when I had to say bye to my great friend Andi Tanzer as his flight leaves in the early afternoon . We hopped out of bed and in the blink of an eye he was gone . What an adventure we have had together and I’m sure there will be many more . Wiped the tear from my eye and went back to my room and began rearranging my bags for the next flight which is much later in the evening at 8:30 pm . I requested a late checkout of 1 pm and still got a phone call asking when I was checking out from the front desk ? Don’t they communicate with each other or put it on file ? Anyways I figured I would stay until the last second then head to the airport to do some stuff .
When I got to the airport in my taxi which was a pleasant ride , I went through security to get into the terminal and went straight to the Turkish Airlines office to see if there was any compensation for the over 4 hour delay the day prior . They kept asking if I missed another flight ! Why does it make any difference ? You fucked up my day ! Doesn’t that mean anything to these airlines ? Anyways final outcome will be an email and possibly a phone call when my trip is over , just another thing to deal with when I get home ugh 😑 after that I did some writing and killed some time before grabbing my bags from the baggage locker at the airport which cost me around $10 to leave overnight and I didn’t have to drag it around and honestly I think I will be doing this more often for these quick stopover days that don’t include hockey . Now it’s time to check in and drop bags off ... I’m always holding my breath when this moment comes . Will they charge me for baggage ? I got in line and went to the woman who barely spoke English and she weighed my bag which was 26 kilos and then looked at my sticks and tagged them both without any questions ! Wow ! Why can’t all airlines do this ? This is my first trip ever that I didn’t have to pay for any luggage so far ... one more flight home and that should be free baggage also as I will be heading from Asia to North America and I will be leaving my sticks to a lucky goalie in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Dropped my bags at oversized and headed to clear the passport control . No problems there and now I’m scott free to relax and kill another 4 hours before boarding .... I’m hungry so I went to Popeyes to have some chicken and spend my last 70 liras and after that I just wandered around taking pictures of sculptures and looking for some more stuff to bring home... particularly socks or Christmas ornaments as I enjoy collecting socks from cities I visit with the city obviously printed on the sock and ornaments that say the cities name or countries name . No luck ... oh well , I kept wandering and then watched some Netflix then did some more wandering ....
Through my wanders all the seating areas were filled then I decided to go to the end of the terminal where I found this nap zone , hmmm 🤔 it’s not even a quarter full and there were plenty of reclining chairs to pass out on so I set my alarm and passed out like a baby . Oh it was so awesome , I loved it so much and I’m sure some of the other people didn’t love my snoring because when I woke up I had a few people looking at me with that wtf look on their faces . Oh well I don’t care and I will never see you again 😝 now it’s time to board my flight ✈️ .... But I want to say that every airport in the world should have a nap zone and if they do why didn’t I ever encounter this before ?
Finally get to my gate and of course ... my flight is delayed ! Don’t get too overly excited as it’s only 20 minutes and this time there are actual Turkish Airlines answering questions instead of dodging them . All is good and when we boarded I got my window seat with nobody sitting beside me and I got comfortable and out on the new Spider Man movie and that was my day .... let’s see what happens when I arrive in Almaty , Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Before I end this I want to say that Istanbul is one of the absolute most amazing cities I have ever visited . I had no problems with anything whatsoever and if I could talk you into visiting any city on this planet I would seriously suggest Istanbul . I wouldn’t doubt that I will be back someday ... maybe with Kathleen . Adios Istanbul !
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